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Monday, November 22, 2010

Ground Temperature is holding up!

22 Nov'10: A year ago today, the deep ground temperature was 8.10º. Tonight, while taking the usual Sunday night readings for the spreadsheet, and letting the GSHP pump glycol round for 20 mins, the deep temperature was 11.3º. I want it to be high, but this is far higher than I expected because the last week has been dire.... a small amount of sunshine last monday, followed by days of low fog and cloud with periods of drizzle.
Perhaps this interseasonal charging lark is working!

Because we seem to get quite a lot of sunny days in Feb and March, I am hoping that the usual springtime drop of ground temperature will not occur because the sun will come in early enough to prevent frosting. The lowest was in 10 January, 4.70º, with an average daily GSHP power consumption of nearly 30 kWh/day. Even if there are sunny days, we don't get much of them, due to Sharphill looming high to the South East of the house.

24 Nov: Higher consumption?
My all time annual low of 3,996 kWh for the GSHP and 6,075 kWh for the house was achieved on 1st October'10, and since them the weekly-corrected figures for annual consumption have gone up, not down.
Some things are causing our consumption to be higher than last year... the calculation of the annual consumption is re-computed every Sunday. As each week is being added at the head, a week at the tail is snipped off, and I am snipping off a very warm autumn of 2009 and replacing it with a week of very cold autumn.

We had an unusually cold Spring in 2010, and now, we are having a far colder autumn in 2010, with a cold snap in October and evening temperatures in single figures for most of November. It is still November, and a heavy fall of snow is predicted for the last week of this month.
Another reason is that I have a deal with my wife (who is disabled and unable to exercise) to raise the thermostat to 22º whereas it was 21º last year. I am also allowing the room thermostat to have 'more influence' in the thermal algorithm of the GSHP (compared with the liquid temperature). One degree difference can greatly add to the annual heating load, perhaps another 180 degree-days.
I will reduce the activity of the Sunboxes on non sunny days by raising the Triggering Delta-T to 6º C, instead of the previous 5º. This is from observation, that when temperatures are lower, the earning from the Sunbox is reduced, and a fast pump flow does not pick so much heat up. So one can reduce excessive pump hours by making it activate when there is a greater delta-T - either when the GSHPs' ground loop is much colder, or when there is a winter sun.

15 June 2014: It has been a dry June so far with negligible rain. I'm glad to have 300litres of water storage for the garden. House ...

Peveril Solar House

Welcome to Charging the Earth!

PEVERIL SOLAR is the first house in the UK to be entirely solar heated all year round! It is Carbon Net-Zero. It is an 'Active House' balancing inputs and outputs. PV generation and heating system consumption are in favourable balance using concepts of energy storage. Others claiming houses to be the first date from 2013 (and are unbuilt); this house exists and was carbon zero since 2011.

The name 'Charging' refers to 'storing energy underground': we have custom-built solar collectors, Surya Sunboxes, with ETFE front surfaces, to pump solar heat deep down into the earth. The building's heat pump gets all of this back in Realtime (immediately), Diurnially (later during the evenings) or Interseasonally (in Winter, months after the Summer).

Thus, we are augmenting the heatpump by storing long term heat in the summer, and we are defrosting the ground in winter-spring conditions, supplying solar energy directly to the heat pump, through its ground loop.

The five-way pentangle of Grid, Borehole, Heat pump, PV roof and Sunboxes have made the house Carbon Zero (for metered consumption). It's working, and we will continue to record data, to maintain that efficiency, and write it up in this website through to next year and beyond.

During theAutumn of 2012, we built a small house extension that is ultra insulated, with a higher energy gain than it loses.

Note, that we still have a net import of power from the Grid, because we still need power for lighting, cooking and appliances. But for the building emissions (as opposed to lifestyle emissions), we have achieved a credit balance of the regulated quantities, as recorded by meters.

The web-log follows the project from this general idea in Aug. 2009 to a technology of Surya Sunboxes, which seem to be effective - reducing energy costs of the house. Some of the Tabs will help you to get background and theory. You can click below to 'Follow Blog' to get email notifications - or email me. Please add Comments to the blog entries. If you find items in the Glossary that need explaining better, please ask. Thankyou!

Publications

Equipment sponsor

Kingspan, for Varisol Tubes

Equipment Sponsor

MG Renewables

Equipment sponsor

Ice Energy Heat Pumps

Equipment Sponsor

Holscot, for ETFE panels, re-fronting the Sunbox

About the Author...

David Nicholson-Cole is a Lecturer in Architecture at the University of Nottingham, with 35 years experience of architectural teaching and practice, which has included special interests in construction, building information modelling, tall building design and renewable energy technologies.

Finally, thanks to my deceased aunt, Margaret Cringle (1915-2008) whose legacy paid for most of the cost of this project - as one who was always turning lights out to save electricity, she would be very pleased!